I am all alone
today, and you must keep me company; will you? Then afterward we'll go
and take a walk, and I'll show you Cambridge. It is such a beautiful old
town, even more beautiful, I sometimes think, when the leaves are off
the trees.
"Come," he said, "I'll take you up-stairs, and you can wash your hands
in the room where George Washington slept. And comb your hair, too, if
you want to," he added; "only it isn't the same comb that he used."
To the boyish mind it was an historic breaking of bread, that midday
meal with Longfellow.
"Can you say grace in Dutch?" he asked, as they sat down; and the boy
did.
"Well," the poet declared, "I never expected to hear that at my table. I
like the sound of it."
Then while the boy told all that he knew about the Netherlands, the poet
told the boy all about his poems. Edward said he liked "Hiawatha."
"So do I," he said. "But I think I like 'Evangeline' better. Still," he
added, "neither one is as good as it should be. But those are the things
you see afterward so much better than you do at the time."
It was a great event for Edward when, with the poet nodding and smiling
to every boy and man he met, and lifting his hat to every woman and
little girl, he walked through the fine old streets of Cambridge with
Longfellow. At one point of the walk they came to a theatrical
bill-board announcing an attraction that evening at the Boston Theatre.
Skilfully the old poet drew out from Edward that sometimes he went to
the theatre with his parents.
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